FANTASTIC FOUR #280-284

Franklin is starting to show precog powers as Psycho Man returns and changes Susan into an evil bitch.

She, in turn, kicks his ass.

But not hard enough. He runs away and the FF have to decide whether to pursue him.

Issue #282 is billed as a Secret Wars II tie-in, so there’s a little obligatory exposition and discussion of The Beyonder.

Secret Wars II, unlike the first one, was pervasive: Nearly every Marvel comic had at least one tie-in to it, and the tie-ins were highly relevant to the Marvel U.

Although this one really wasn’t all that important. Mostly, Byrne just gave it a little lip service. Helping move product. By this time, the FF was one of Marvel’s top sellers, and there are several references to other books in these issues.

In particular, Franklin has another precog dream: This time about Power Pack. The team’s book had recently launched, and didn’t really catch on the way it should have, so I can appreciate Byrne’s cross-marketing here.

Much of this arc involves a trip to the Microverse.

We get to see Psycho Man turn She Hulk into scaredy putty. That’s kind of funny.

This arc recalls the first Negative Zone arc, where Byrne took the team to several different worlds and through various adventures.

I think Jonathan Hickman’s recent run owes a lot to this kind of storytelling.